Amazon's new Key service lets couriers unlock your door

Opal Carroll

It even showed off drones that could drop the package right into your backyard.

Amazon announced a new service in the USA today that will let the tech giant right inside the front door. But Amazon is hoping to tackle this very issue, by introducing a new service called Amazon Key.

As the name suggests, the Cloud Cam uses your in-home Wi-Fi to talk to the lock when a courier arrives with your package.

The system works thanks to a lock connected. The driver just has to slip in the package and then lock your door once again. If everything checks out, the cloud grants permission by sending a message back to the camera, which starts recording.

The courier will then have to swipe their phone's screen to unlock the door, deliver the package, and finally relock the door with another swipe.

How does Amazon Key work?

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You buy a kit that includes an Amazon security camera, the Cloud Cam, and a compatible smart lock.

Yes, as long as the delivery driver can access and enter your front door.

Prime customers can preorder the camera today. Delivery associates are told to ring a doorbell or knock when they arrive at someone's house. If you already own a compatible lock, you can buy the camera for $120. The bundle is now avail;able for pre-order but is exclusive to Amazon Prime members.

Amazon says the delivery driver will not be given an access code or key.

For example, like Walmart's piloted service, Amazon Key could have potential particularly for delivery of perishable groceries, a major issue many grocers continue to struggle with today: A June report from The NPD Group, of Port Washington, N.Y., revealed that the prior month saw only 7 percent of USA consumers shopping online for groceries, as they didn't have much control over their fresh purchases. The idea of setting up a $250 system that allows strangers into a person's home when that person isn't around (and links itself to a mandatory in-home surveillance network!) sent screaming heebie-jeebies down the spines of many, many Twitter users Wednesday.

To mitigate the fears you might have about letting any Amazon Tom, Dick and Sally just popping in through the porch and dropping a delivery, they've tempered this news with an Alexa development they're calling Amazon Cloud Cam. If they need to deliver a package still, they will simply follow the standard Amazon delivery process. The solution (to the reasonable home security provided by a locked front door), it turns out, is as simple as turning the place where you live into a miniature privatized surveillance-state dystopia monitored at all times by the terrifying, unaccountable mega-corporation on the far side of the omnipresent computing cloud. It also lets you lock and unlock your door lock.

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